


Impetus

by convexity



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Credence has a crush, Feeding Kink, Food Issues, Hand Feeding, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Protective Original Percival Graves, Referenced Neglect, Touch-Starved Credence, Underfed Credence, so does Percival Graves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 05:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14371836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/convexity/pseuds/convexity
Summary: Credence opened his mouth, let Graves place a bite on his tongue. A soft expression settled over Grave’s face. “That’s a pretty sight.”





	Impetus

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this with a real, sincere Graves in mind who genuinely cares for Credence...(but it definitely could be read kinda canon-y and be G. as Graves, manipulating Credence, if you'd rather).

Graves had no way of knowing how hungry Credence was when he brought them to a little cafe, but he hadn’t had coffee all morning, and the boy looked practially hollow out there on the street, hunching away from the biting wind. Graves put his hands on Credence, steering him to the cafe door, and felt his shoulderblade like the edge of a machete through his thin coat. He wondered if he pulled up the boy’s shirt if he could count his ribs, if they would jut out like masts of a ship. He held the door for Credence, who paused for a moment in the swirling snow in confusion before ducking in ahead of Graves.

The smells of places like these had often tormented Credence from the street. Baking bread and pastries, espresso in the air like incense. The scents hit him the same time as the warmth, offering relief to his wind-numbed face but rousing his ever-present hunger.

Credence was used to hunger. Normally by two in the afternoon it had been clawing around his stomach like a cat in a sack for hours already. In the afternoons it usually abated and turned into woozy exhaustion, made him faint and lightheaded. The sounds of automobiles and the street crowds thinned into a sound like flies buzzing. Standing up too fast meant darkness seeped into his vision like he’d walked into the pictures before the reel began.

Graves gestured to a booth in the corner, and Credence slid in, long legs tucking underneath him. He hoped the hiss of the milk steamers, the clinking of forks and cups and the din of customers would be enough to keep Graves from hearing his now growling stomach. He took off his hat, placed it on the upholstery beside his thigh and smoothed his hair down with his hands. It was shorn unevenly, and was often unruly on the top, gaining him reproachful looks from Ma.

Credence watched Graves at the counter, gesturing to the barista at something in their expansive glass pastry case and nodding, reaching for his wallet.

Credence scanned the little corner cafe, the dark wallpaper and deliberately avant-garde decor unfamiliar to him as the bazaars of the east. A painting on the wall nearest him boasted a woman in a green dress, the angles of her hips impossibly narrow, feathered headband tickling the chest of the circus bear with whom she danced, it’s searching paws making the whole thing oddly suggestive.

From across the tables he noticed a girl’s sleeve slide from her white shoulder. Unphased, head thrown back in a carefree laugh, she made no move to replace it. Credence looked down at his hands. Ma would hold out her hand for his belt if she saw him within thirty yards of this place. But his Ma wasn’t here. He was with Mr Graves, and that gave him a sense of safety that warmed him like a hearth.

He glanced at the counter to see Graves standing a respectable distance back, waiting as they prepared his order. He looked over to Credence, smiled and winked. Credence smiled back.

By dinnertime the gnawing hunger had usually started again. If he was lucky he had floated through the afternoon on a scrap he had gleaned from a market. He had learned (like the other children who knew hunger but were too afraid of God or shopkeepers to blatantly steal) to keep a hawk eye out for the carelessness of others, for it might mean a chance at a bite of fruit, a heel of bread, the discarded rind of a wheel of cheese. Anything at all to keep the dizziness at bay so he could finish his chores, so he could avoid Ma’s wrath.

If his chores were finished, literature distributed, floors clean, washing done, prayers said, and younger children tended to, he could eat supper. It varied, but usually it was some sort of stew or soup that wanted for meat and salt.

Once, he had found an egg, crusty and stuck with hen’s feathers, fallen from a shopping basket perhaps, but unbroken on the street. He’d cracked it between this thumbs and drunk from it, raw yolk bloodstreaked and slippery in his throat. Only once he’d thrown the shell to the side and wiped his mouth did he feel shame, the dread of having been spotted in that impulsive act of hunger.

Graves slid into the booth opposite him, pushed a steaming cup of fragrant tea his way and a little round plate bearing a blueberry muffin the size of both his clasped fists. For himself he carried both a small espresso cup and a scone in one hand. Credence greedily put his hands around the teacup, letting the heat radiate into his fingers. Graves settled himself, smoothing his coat and setting his hat on the booth, wet with a thousand tiny flakes of melting snow.

“Thank you. You didn’t have to…”

Graves held up a hand to stop him. “Eat, Credence.”

Credence was going to wait until Graves took a bite of his scone, but the man seemed more interested in watching him, waiting for him to eat. Credence reached out and tore a portion of the top from the muffin with two slender fingers, lowering his eyes as he raised it to his mouth. The sweetness of the streusel topping melted on his tongue like a snowflake, and he felt saliva pool on his tongue immediately in response to such a treat. He chewed slowly, like it was all there was. 

Satisfied, Graves sipped his espresso.

“What did you mean earlier?” Credence ventured. “When you said you could… see something in me?.”

“Power.” Graves answered simply. Credence watched as he folded his hands in front of him, sat back a little in the booth, versatile and at complete ease anywhere. “Your very biological makeup is lit up with it like a livewire.”

A livewire, Credence thought. Dangerous. Unpredictable. 

“Inside you, Credence, is a-”

“Monster.” Credence whispered miserably.

“No.” Grave’s voice was low but firm enough that Credence looked up from his lap, a little startled.

“No,” He said more gently. “Not a monster, my boy. I’m talking about you, and you alone, without any parasite or hindrances. What you were born to do, to become. How incredible you are. It’s raw, unbridled. I think that’s why I can feel it so strongly.”

Credence felt his face flushing, his neck. He tore a tiny island of mufffin from the main to eat, pushed it against the roof of his mouth, sucked. Why was Graves so kind to him? Why did he seem to believe in him? It was overwhelming, baffling. He never wanted it to stop.

“I can feel it when I touch you.” Graves added, and reached across the table, hands open, asking for Credence’s hands wordlessly. Heart lurching, Credence gave them up from his lap, palms up, and set them in Grave’s larger, warmer ones. He felt the squeeze of them closing over his own. Grounding. The comfort of contact pulled a sigh from deep inside him, a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

Suddenly self-conscious, he glanced around the cafe. No one was paying them any mind. Graves seemed to already know that, but he waited patiently for Credence to come to that conclusion.

“You’ve been starved of everything. Touch, affection, your magic, safety, even food. But somehow….” Grave’s appraising look became too much for Credence and he had to look at their joined hands to keep from shaking.

Graves seemed to rouse himself from a deep thought, shook his head a little. “Speaking of starving…” He reached to a little ceramic dish in the corner of the booth, scooped butter onto a flat knife and halved the muffin with it, letting the pat of butter ooze down and begin to lose shape. Credence stifled a whimper from the loss of contact of their hands, retracted his slowly back into his lap. Graves set the butterknife down and picked up a warm, fluffy bite in his fingers and brought it to Credence’s lips. Dark eyebrows raised, he gave Credence an encouraging little nod.

Credence opened his mouth, let Graves place the bite on his tongue. Grave’s fingers brushed his lips and the feeling was so foreign he thought he'd forgotten how to breathe. Grave’s fingers retreated and he chewed slowly. The tart blueberries tasted exotic to him.

A soft expression settled over Grave’s face. “That’s a pretty sight.”

Credence flushed with pride and embarrassment both, looked at Graves through his lashes. He wanted to get up and move around the booth to slide in on Grave’s side. He longed to inhale Grave’s heady cologne again, to be tucked into his side, to let himself be hand-fed, rest his head on Grave’s shoulder and be held safely like a child. Or perhaps that wasn’t it. It wasn’t just safety, the promise of warmth and food, though he craved both fiercely. Maybe it was the tenderness of Grave’s touch he chased. And it was always tender, like a lover. Credence realized he would let Graves do anything to him. Anything at all.

“Here.” Graves said, encouraged by Credence’s reaction, again reaching over and hand-feeding him another bite. Credence let his tongue flick over Grave’s finger this time, an instinct he thought for a moment to repress but a moment too late. Graves definitely noticed, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as Credence accepted the bite onto his tongue like communion.

“Credence,” He said, and Credence hears his name differently than he can ever remember hearing it- a kind of reverence in the syllables forming something altogther new. “If you’d like we can find a more private place to finish our meal.” 

Credence licked his lips. Butter and sugar and salt from human skin. He wasn't naive. The tone of suggestion in the Grave's voice had stirred something dormant in him, something subdued. Graves took his hesitation for reluctance. Gently, he amended, “only if you’d like.”

When he spoke, his voice had taken on an unfamiliar tone. A little wobbly, but unmistakably tinged with want, with need. 

“I think I’d like that, Mr Graves.”

**Author's Note:**

> [say hi on Tumblr!!!!!](http://bastardgirls.tumblr.com)


End file.
